This week I cut off all my hair. Yes, all of it.
I was in need of a haircut and unsure whether to have a trim and keep it long, or return to a shoulder length bob cut. A chance comment at work led me down a different path.
I discovered a charity quite close to me who make wigs out of donated hair. These wigs are then given freely to children and young people who have lost their hair due to illness. It seemed sad to me that I had a choice about my hair (that I largely felt indifferent to) and yet so many people lose their hair as a result of situations outside of their control.
So out came the scissors.
If you want to see pictures you can do so on my fundraising page here. I’m asking people who may not be willing to go to the extremes of losing their hair to consider instead making a donation to the wonderful work of the Little Princess Trust.
What has been interesting though is the responses I’ve had from people I know. It seems my long ginger hair was quite important to some of those around me. Who knew?!
Friends and family have expressed sadness that I have cut it all off. I’ve been told that I will regret it, that they miss it and that being ginger was a part of me being me. Whilst they understand my reasoning, some have suggested it was an extreme decision.
But to me it’s just hair. Hair that will grow back and is now a hell of a lot easier to manage in the mornings!
I never realised that my hair was of such significance to some of those around me. It’s led me to think further about my identity and, specifically, the difference between the values I place upon myself and what other people value in me.
My hair colour has been natural for a while now. Many of you will remember a time when it was less so. I think at one point or another, it’s been every colour under the sun. My favourite was blue. My grandparents were less than keen on that choice!
In terms of my identity, my hair has been a way for me to be creative and express myself but it has never felt truly significant to me. I care little about how it looks and much more about how it makes me feel.
And yet, when I think about it now, my hair is a part of my family identity. With gingers on both sides, my brother and I were never going to escape becoming ones ourselves. Our hair colouring set us apart from other children and identified us as belonging to the same genetic pool. As kids, we would often laugh together about the (less than) inventive insults other children would throw our way – ginga, carrot top, lobster face, copper and (most amusingly) tampon head!
We laughed not as a defence but out of genuine amusement that anyone could attribute negative connotations to the stuff growing out of our head. I imagine that our ability to see it this way, instead of as the bullying it was, was a result of the many years of positive reinforcement in our early childhoods. Put simply, I come from a family of ginger lovers! I was taught that any child who mocked my hair colour was simply jealous not to have it themselves.
But what if my self-worth had not been so well cultivated by those around me? What if my family identity was less clear or was something I wished to avoid?
As soon as we remove a child from their birth families we alter their identity. Who we are as children is so highly connected to our relationship with our birth parents that there is no way to avoid this.
We have a tendency within fostering and adoption to see this as a good thing. In subtle ways we suggest that the birth family is ‘bad’ and the foster/adoptive family is ‘good’. The child is encouraged to identify with the latter and no longer with the former.
But if we listen to our children we will realise that this simply does not work. No child can (or should) ignore their origins. They are an intrinsic part of who they are.
That bag they came with of smelly clothes, crumpled photos and a dirty teddy is not the trash we think it is. It is who they are. When we mindlessly throw it away, we throw a part of the child away too. We may feel that we are doing them a service but in fact we are creating a situation whereby they may not ever feel whole.
Unaddressed, this lack of wholeness leads to a whole range of problems later in life. They may seek other people to complete them or look to addictions to fill the gaps. They are likely to say that they don’t know who they are and don’t like the parts they do know.
As foster and adoptive parents and professionals we must remember to honour every part of our children. Even the attributes that we may struggle with are testament to the struggles they have had. Those struggles are, and always will be, a part of their stories and a part of who they are.
And we must think about what we value and its significance to the child.
At some point they will be old enough decide for themselves who they are. Our role is to preserve as much of their culture, heritage, experiences and memories as possible. It is for the child later on to decide what they keep as part of their identity and what they leave behind.
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